


Wherever Is Your Heart, I Call Home

by voluptatiscausa



Category: Red Rising Series - Pierce Brown
Genre: Anal Sex, Dark Age (Red Rising), Flashbacks, M/M, Memory Loss, Oral Sex, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 16:28:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21059681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voluptatiscausa/pseuds/voluptatiscausa
Summary: Worse than not knowing his own face, his own name, his own history or character?  Worse than not knowing where he is, or why, or what he’s done?The worst of it is, there is a longing in his chest, and he doesn’t know who it belongs to.





	Wherever Is Your Heart, I Call Home

He doesn’t know his name. He doesn’t know what sort of man he is, or even what he looks like. He thinks he must be unpleasant to look at, possibly repulsive, because when the Golden Woman comes to speak to him, her lips turn down and her nostrils flare. She always seems to be fighting nausea in his presence, and he wonders how horrifying he must be to incite this reaction in a woman who carries herself with such grace.  
  
The trouble is, they won’t give him a mirror.  
  
He asks. Not a guard. Well, not one of _his_ guards. He asks the Golden Woman’s guard, the one he thinks of as The Boulder. She’s a Grey, and he admires her muscles, her heavy build, her loyalty to the Golden Woman. He has muscles too; but they’re lean and strangely…_carved_ looking. Too defined. And he doesn’t feel strong. He does push-ups in his cell sometimes, but the activity feels strange and unfamiliar, which is silly, he supposes - everything is unfamiliar. And he can tell, when he does this, that his muscles are not…functional.   
  
_For show_, a voice whispers in his mind.   
  
This voice frightens him. It speaks to him only briefly, and rarely. It always seems to be sneering.  
  
_Bitch_, it snarls at the gracious Golden Woman.  
  
_Freak_, it growls at the strength of The Boulder.   
  
_Ugly_, it scoffs at the guards.  
  
That last is strange; what right has this voice in his head to make aesthetic judgments, when each and every guard looks at him with disgust?  
  
Whoever the voice belongs to, he doesn’t like him.  
  
So, he asks The Boulder for a mirror. If his face is a horror, he says, he wants to face it. The Boulder scowls, and he grows desperate. Please, he says. They won’t even tell me the color of my eyes. _I don’t know who I am_.   
  
He sees pity in her face then, and it chills him. She looks to the Golden Woman, who shakes her head almost sadly.   
  
The Golden Woman says, I’m sorry. We can’t allow that yet. Not for quite some time. She _sounds_ sorry. He believes her. So he nods in acceptance, gripping the edge of the table to keep his hands from tracing the lines of his face. It’s a habit he’s developed; closing his eyes and running his fingers over his features as though he could see by touch. All he had learned was that his face felt sharp and delicate, like the rest of his body. Slim, long fingers. Pale, flawless skin.   
  
Is his face as disgusting as his body is beautiful?  
  
That isn’t the worst of it. Worse than not knowing his own face, his own name, his own history or character? Worse than not knowing where he is, or why, or what he’s done?   
  
The worst of it is, there is a _longing_ in his chest, and he doesn’t know who it belongs to.

* * *

  
  
Dancer is walking around the lake and breathing in the smell of the trees the first time he sees the most beautiful man in all the worlds, and the breath stops halfway to his lungs and he’s frozen. Just staring, like a teenager, and when his breath returns it’s faster to match the beating of his heart.   
  
His feet carry him towards the man as though his brain has no say in the matter, and he should have known, he should have _known_. He must be a Pink, too beautiful for any other Color. He is settled on the grass in front of an easel, the canvas blank, idly twirling a paintbrush as he stares out across the lake. He’s wearing loose grey clothing, a scarf draped around his neck. He’s slim, and pale, and graceful as he reclines on a tattered red blanket.   
  
Dancer gestures to the blank canvas. “Waiting for inspiration?” he says.   
  
The Pink turns his head to look up at him, and smiles, and Dancer’s breath stops again. Not a Pink, as he’d thought while he approached. A Rose. The Rose’s hair is long and fine, pulled back into a queue with a few wisps escaping at the temples in the most charming way. The hair matches the eyes, a deep pink that’s almost purple. Sharp cheekbones, softened by the scarf and the smile.  
  
“Waiting for the sunset,” replies the Rose. His voice is polished, but friendly.   
  
_Hell_.  
  
Dancer wonders what he could possibly be thinking. Looking at the Rose, who must have belonged to someone incredibly wealthy before the Rising, he feels the weight of all his years. Feels each of the scars on his skin as though they were fresh pit viper bites. The grey in his hair, the roundness of his cheeks.   
  
“Few more hours yet,” he says inanely, but the Rose smiles.  
  
“I’ve nowhere else to be,” the Rose says. Incredibly, he pats the blanket. “Why don’t you sit with me until it arrives?”  
  
Dancer does.

* * *

  
  
The guards take him to the only other room he sees besides his cell; white walls, white table, white chairs. He sits and waits for the Golden Woman to arrive. She’ll ask him more questions he doesn’t know the answer to and sometimes doesn’t even understand, but she never gets angry when he can’t tell her what she wants to know. She just listens with clinical attention, so he never tries to cut their interviews short. When the door opens and the Golden Woman enters, she doesn’t sit down opposite him as she normally does. She looks at him without speaking for several minutes before saying, “You have a visitor.”  
  
He sits up straighter.   
  
“A visitor, Lady?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“May I ask who?”   
  
The Golden Woman takes a breath.   
  
“I told him this was unwise, but I owe it to him. You will likely not know him, but you _will_ be kind to him. Do you understand?”  
  
“Yes, Lady.”   
  
His heart is beating faster, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. Will this person know him? Will this person tell him who he is?   
  
Will this person tell him why he wakes in the night, heart aching for a face he cannot conjure, a name he does not know?  
  
The Golden Woman leaves, and he hears muffled voices in the hall.   
  
And then, a man enters the room, and the longing in his chest grows to fill his whole being.  
  
The man is a Red. He’s perhaps in his early fifties. His hair is short and thick, a deep auburn, with streaks of grey. He’s shorter than himself, and broad. A rugged face, an honorable face. Scars, on his jaw and his hands. He’s wearing rough brown clothes, but the man with no name can smell cologne and toothpaste. The man with no name stands, hands already reaching out.   
  
“It’s you.”  
  
The Red’s eyes narrow. He shuts the door but stays close to it, leaning against the wall.  
  
“You know me?”  
  
Oh, God, his voice. It’s rough and cold, and somehow that feels wrong. That voice…that voice should be warm, whispering in his ear, not across the room and speaking in tones of accusation.  
  
“Not exactly, no.” He frowns, wondering how he can explain. “But I…” he brings his palm to his chest, trying to find the words.   
  
_I don’t know you, but I know there is someone I need, terribly…_  
  
_I don’t know you, but when you entered this room, my heart…_  
  
_I don’t know you, but I want so badly to hear your name…_  
  
He knows these words aren’t enough, can’t explain this feeling he carries with him every moment of the day, that yearning that lifted its head when the Red entered the room and howled like a wounded animal.   
  
The Red seems to agree that words are not enough, because he’s sneering now.  
  
“What? You don’t know me, but you _feel_ me? In your _heart_? In your _soul_?”  
  
The words are meant to wound, the man can tell, but he can only answer them with honesty. It’s all he has, now.   
  
“Yes.” He nods, feeling a little breathless, gripping the back of his chair as he stands behind it, trying to keep himself from running to the Red. He wants to hold him so badly his arms ache along with his chest. “I have this…” he places a fist over his heart and thumps it, softly. “This pain. Here. And my…” he can feel blood rushing to his cheeks, to the tips of his ears, but what if the Red never comes back, all because he lacked the courage to be truthful? “…My body is responding to you.” He’s whispering, and looking at the floor, but it’s the truth. There’s heat between his legs, sweet and desperate, and his breath is coming quickly. His _mouth_ is _watering_, for God’s sake.  
  


* * *

  
The sunset comes and goes, and the Duke suspects he’s made a mistake. He doesn’t have to force his smiles, because Dancer can make him laugh, genuinely laugh, and so he should thank Dancer for the lovely conversation, assign someone else to seduce the man, and never see him again.  
  
He doesn’t.  
  
He suspects it again, on their first date. Well, Dancer calls its their first date; the Duke insists on calling it their second, only to see Dancer blush. It’s raining, and they’re snug inside the little cafe. They’re seated by a window, and Dancer looks out at the downpour every few moments. Dancer loves the rain, the Duke learns. Sometimes, Dancer confesses, when it storms, he likes to stand in the rain and let it drench him. He loves the way it smells, the way it feels. Clean, and cool.   
  
Dancer is a practical man, a hard man, a tired man. But he has a capacity for wonder that surprises the Duke, and he’s rarely surprised. What would it be like to share that sense of wonder?   
  
The Duke suspects he’s made a mistake when he leans across the small table, taking Dancer’s jaw in his hand. Dancer looks away from the rain, into the Duke’s eyes, but the look of wonder stays. Dancer swallows, hard, and the Duke licks his lips, and for perhaps the first time in his life, the motion isn’t voluntary. He leans in closer, and presses his lips to Dancer’s, thinking of rain. He tastes of coffee and burners, and he returns the kiss so gently the Duke feels something flutter in his chest.  
  
Dancer pulls away first, confusion on his face as clearly as the ruddy blush of his cheeks. The Duke takes Dancer’s hand. “That’s lovely,” he says. An inelegant, inadequate compliment. But true.   
  
But that’s not the moment the Duke should have known. He should have known that first day, in the park, when Dancer had finally asked his name, and he answered truthfully. Faustus. 

* * *

  
  
The Red is silent, and the man forces himself to look up, to meet the Red’s eyes through the tears that started to fall as he stared at the hard, white floor.   
  
“Like hell,” the Red says, and there’s a break in his voice.   
  
A sob is threatening to burst from his lips, but he doesn’t want to scare the Red away, so he swallows it.   
  
The Red steps further into the room, and pulls out the chair rather jerkily. He sits down.  
  
“Tears,” says the Red. “And the blushing, that’s new too.”   
  
There’s venom in the words, but the Red’s voice is shaking.  
  
The man pulls out his own chair and sits opposite the Red, slowly, as though he’s afraid to scare the Red away.   
  
“Please tell me your name,” he whispers.   
  
The Red looks at him, and he drinks in the sight. The Red has remarkable eyes, set in strong features. Dark eyebrows with a natural arch to them that the man wants to trace with his fingers.   
  
“Dancer,” says the Red, and the man can’t help but smile. He has a name now, and a face. Precious details to hold in his heart when he wakes in the night.   
  
“That’s lovely,” he says, because it is the truth. But Dancer looks away.   
  
The man’s brows furrow, and he tries to catch Dancer’s eye again. “What is it? I’m sorry, have I said something wrong?”   
  
Dancer is shaking his head, and the man feels a panic begin to rise inside him.   
  
“Please forgive me, Dancer,” he whispers, not knowing what he’s begging forgiveness for. He just knows there is a guilty weight next to his longing, and he thinks maybe it’s time to let go of the hope that the two are not of the same source.  
  
The Red looks up. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?”  
  


* * *

  
  
Dancer doesn’t agree to return to Faustus’s apartment until after their fifth date. Faustus can see it’s partly nerves, but it was no lie when Dancer had described himself as a gentleman. Both reasons are charming, but Faustus has never been made to wait for sex, and he’s impatient as they climb the stairs to the flat he’s rented as part of his cover. He’s not thinking about the mission, and that’s dangerous.   
  
He’s thinking that the second they are behind closed doors, he’s going to devour Dancer.   
  
And he does.   
  
The door slams and he pushes Dancer against it, heedless of everything but his own hunger. God, his _taste_. And in all his years in the beds of Golds, he’s never heard anything like Dancer’s moan when he slides his tongue inside the man’s mouth. It’s raw and delicious, and Faustus swallows it down, already chasing another.   
  
“Wait, wait,” Dancer is panting. Faustus groans, barely restraining himself from stamping his foot as he leans his forehead against Dancer’s, trapping him against the door with his body. He’s never begged before in his life, but he doesn’t think his cock has ever been this hard either, and whatever words Dancer needs to hear, Faustus is prepared to say them.  
  
He presses gentle kisses against Dancer’s face and neck. “I’ve been waiting,” he says, breathing hotly into Dancer’s ear. “You’ve made me wait weeks to have you. Tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you.” Faustus scarcely recognizes his own voice, rough and urgent.   
  
“Are you…” Dancer is breathing heavily, so Faustus pulls away slightly, giving him room to think. “Are you sure you want this.” Dancer’s voice is flat, and his hands are clenched at his sides, as though preparing himself for an answer he will not like.   
  
Faustus can’t stop himself from laughing.   
  
“You stupid man,” he says, fumbling with Dancer’s belt. Dancer grabs Faustus’s wrist, and Faustus looks up, surprised.   
  
“Answer me.”  
  
Faustus isn’t laughing now, with Dancer’s grip hard on his wrist. He swallows, gently taking Dancer’s free hand in his and guiding it between his legs. Dancer’s fingers brush his hard cock, and Faustus feels his eyes flutter closed and hears the low moan that escapes his lips.   
  
“Can’t you feel it?” He says. “Can’t you see it? Look at me, Dancer.”  
  
Dancer’s hand moves to Faustus’s hip, stroking. He looks into Faustus’s eyes, and slips his fingers beneath the fabric of Faustus’s shirt. When Dancer touches his bare skin, Faustus whimpers, and Dancer takes the ends of his shirt in both hands and begins to lift his shirt over his head. Faustus lifts his arms to allow it, and hears Dancer’s curse as the sharp planes of his torso are revealed. He doesn’t want to hear about it, doesn’t want anymore uncertainty. He wants _Dancer_, so he pulls him away from the door, towards the bed. 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't finished Dark Age yet, I just read the chapter where Virginia and Sevro show Dancer the Duke's memory, and I just, ow?? And there are zero Dancer/Faustus fics, get your shit together people, I gotta do all the work myself?


End file.
